I Hate Closets or How I Love Decluttering

Well, I don’t hate all closets, but for the most part I despise closets in North American homes. They become places where you hide – or forget – things. And that’s how the clutter begins.

You go to put something in your closet and there is no room. So you find another closet or another space to put the item in. You’ll likely forget where you put that item and will search every closet, with the last one being where you put the item.

The closet in our youngest son’s room is our seasonal clothes closet. Winter comes and we put all the summer clothes in there. Summer comes and the winter clothes go back. Recently, we cleaned up his room and freed up the floor of the closet for his toys and soccer bag. He has a four drawer dresser where three drawers are for pants, shorts, socks, underwear and PJs. The top drawer is for his keepsakes and other things.

We hang his shirts are hangers on a towel rack that is attached to the underside of a long shelf. The shirts are near his dresser, easily visible and accessible and completely out of the way. It’s worked well.

The wife and I have been spending more time over the past two years decluttering the house and our lives. A few years ago we had mice in our detached garage – they loved the insulation the previous home owners installed. So we rented a bin to get rid of all the insulation. The bin company gave us a bin twice the size we ordered. So we took advantage of it.

We went through the crawl space. We went through the garage. We went through our bedrooms. We went through everything and tossed a ton of stuff. Our youngest really got into it and even our oldest, with his OCD, was able to part with some things. It felt great to get rid of stuff.

Every year, we go through a room and see what can be kept, what can be sold and what can be tossed. We now scan our various papers and receipts and shred what we don’t need to keep for warranty claims or income tax. It’s liberating.